The Path of Exile 3.26 Secrets of the Atlas update is here. It adds new powerful bosses to fight at the end of the game more ways to craft items and new mercenary helpers.
It's been a long time since we did this says director Jonathan Rogers. Our studio had some problems for a while but now we fixed them and we’re working again. The new Path of Exile update, Secrets of the Atlas is a big change for Grinding Gear Games. It answers fans who want the game to get new content. Also it’s the first update in a new plan: from now on PoE 1 and PoE 2 will each get big updates every four months. That means there will be six new leagues every year one every two months between the two games.
The main focus is on the endgame. Mark Neon Roberts The game director of PoE 1 says the team is mostly thinking about players who love the game for a long time. But he also says new players can have fun too especially since the game is free on Steam. They added mercenaries which are helper characters you can hire to fight with you. This makes it easier for new players to try the game.
These mercenaries are experienced fighters from the wild cities of Trarthus. The game will tell you more about this place. Each mercenary has their own gear and skills you can check out. If you want to hire them you have to win a duel against them. If you don’t want to hire them you can fight them to get an item they carry. Or if you want them to disappear for a while you can choose a fight that sends them away so they won’t come back soon.
Having a mercenary with you means you will face harder enemies but get better rewards. Roberts says the game treats mercenaries like half a real player when adjusting difficulty. You need gold to hire them and gold is now important because of the Settlers of Kalguur league added to the main game. Once you build the city you won’t have to do the building tasks from last season anymore the city will just be ready when you reach the end of the game.
In Kingsmarch you can use many popular features from the Settlers league but some of the overpowered ones are removed. You can change your skills by paying gold trade crafting materials with the currency exchange and try your luck for items in the black market. These three features will also be in other towns but some will unlock only after you reach certain parts of the game.
When you get to the city you can use the shipping feature again. This lets you trade with other places to get lots of gear, money and other items. You can trade with Karui ports to get Tattoos which change your character’s abilities. You can also trade with Kalguur to get Runegrafts. Runegrafts are like Tattoos but they replace parts of your skill tree and give different effects like making some skills cool down faster or changing bonuses.
All these game features are for the new endgame. Strange tears called Tears in the Atlas have shown up made from twisted memories. The map expert Zana is stuck inside them. You will team up with a new character Eagon to go in and try to find her. This happens through a series of maps usually between four and eight. You can use your usual tools like the Atlas tree, Scarabs and Fragments to affect these maps.
The monsters in these threads have memory petals. When you defeat them you can collect these petals. You can use the petals to get new abilities that depend on the map you are playing. These abilities show up on a small bar next to your normal skills. The abilities are very strong and can add up if you get more as you go further in the thread. There are also special Altars that give extra bonuses for all future maps in the chain.
Memory of Impatience takes souls from nearby enemies to make you stronger for a short time. After using it try Memory of Panic and Memory of Disbelief. Memory of Panic makes monsters come back to life once after they die. So you can fight them twice. Memory of Disbelief stops monsters from dropping equipment but they give better rewards like money and maps instead.
If you use many powers and Altar effects together you’ll play some of the most exciting maps in Path of Exile Roberts says. At the end of each map you will fight a stronger changed version of a powerful boss including some very tough ones. When you beat them you get special map fragments. These fragments let you fight three new even stronger bosses called pinnacles. Roberts says these new bosses are harder than the current ones but not as hard as the toughest bosses called ubers. We will see their ultimate forms in a future update.
New top-level fights bring new rewards. Some of these are the Starcaller axe which can make stars fall across the whole screen when you land a melee critical hit. There is also the Wine of the Prophet flask which gives you the power of a random divination card for 20 seconds. These fights can also give new crafting items that help you change a new stat called memory strands.
Items shown on the thread maps can have something called memory strands. Usually having more memory strands means the item can have better modifiers. When you craft the item to change or add modifiers memory strands are used to make the changes stronger. You can also use special crafting items to add memory strands to normal gear or spend them to improve the item’s current effects randomly.
The Atlas passive tree has been changed to let you customize the new memory threads including how they happen and what rewards you get. You can also find ways to get better rewards from Kalguur. Lastly the Betrayal system has been improved. Now you don’t have to restart your Immortal Syndicate progress to fight the Mastermind so you won’t lose your progress with the group.
The fight against the Mastermind has been changed to have fewer immunity phases making it easier. You can now earn more rewards like Veiled Orbs and new Allflame Embers. These Embers let you swap normal monsters in endgame maps for special ones adding more ways to customize your game. Also in safehouses, the crafting sprees now offer ready-made items So you can try to create something good without much risk of failing.
The update also adds some helpful improvements. Now you can pause the game almost anytime get extra inventory space on the map device, collect Breach splinters automatically and have vendor windows remember your searches. It also shows which items you can use your currency on. There’s more in the full patch notes like a new feature for gamepad players that lets you target monsters and other things separately making it easier to use objects even when enemies are nearby.
Path of Exile 3.26 Secrets of the Atlas and the Mercenaries of Trarthus challenge league start on Friday, June 13. You can play for free on Steam or using the game’s launcher. If you’ve played PoE before you probably already know to come back. If you’re new or played the sequel first this update is a great chance to try the first game and see why many people think it’s the best.
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